Let’s make one point clear; Bitcoin has nothing to do with decentralization. Fundamentally Bitcoin is centralized by design and has done more damage to the perception of decentralization than any other topic.
In the photo on the left you see 90% of Bitcoin’s hashing compute power sitting on the same stage. Compared to the formal banking system where a few dozen very large banks dominate global finance, this internet-era innovation has proven to be far more centralized.
Perhaps the most startling change that internet has driven in the society, we find in the relationship people of the world have with companies. Where as in the past people would pay money for products of companies, and those companies would treat them as customers, now people have become products of those companies. The greatest myth of the internet-age is that internet users are the customers of internet companies such as Google and Facebook, while actually they are the product of those companies.
Let’s see how this plays out. Internet companies make money from selling advertisement and data, in other words the eye balls and personal information of the people of the world. This is the meaning of “valued user” in the internet economy. The users volunteer their time and cognitive energy for the benefit of services such as social networking, search and so forth, while being told that internet is free, and the content is “user generated”. This could not be further from the truth. Even though in many cases people don’t pay directly using monetary means to compensate internet companies, people pay indirectly in both obvious and not so obvious ways.
People of the world pay for the internet in five important ways:
– with their money (bandwidth and devices)
– with their data (surveillance capitalism)
– with their tax dollars (various government programs)
– with the environment (the internet energy footprint)
– with their cognitive energy
Decentralization Objective: An internet that helps lift people out of extreme poverty and empowers those that struggle, systematically reducing the wealth divide in the world.